Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: they last while they last.
—Charles de Gaulle, 1963Quotes
A real leader is somebody who can help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.
—David Foster Wallace, 2000No human life, not even the life of a hermit, is possible without a world which directly or indirectly testifies to the presence of other human beings.
—Hannah Arendt, 1958The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.
—Tacitus, c. 117There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.
—Anthony Trollope, 1862Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.
—John Wilkes Booth, 1865You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.
—Aristophanes, c. 424 BCI am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.
—George Borrow, 1843Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
—Lord Acton, 1887Politics is the art of the possible.
—Otto von Bismarck, 1867Every country has the government it deserves.
—Joseph de Maistre, 1811Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.
—Laozi, c. 500 BCPolitics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.
—Paul Valéry, 1943